Bro-Country Is Trucks, Women and Alcohol, and Is More Popular Then Ever – Except with Some of the Bro-Country Artists

By now, everyone has heard the term bro-country. There is also a pretty good chance that you have even used it in a sentence to describe who's currently hot in the country music genre. But do you actually know what the term means and where it came from?

The term bro-country was invented and defined by New York Times Style Magazine writer Jody Rosen on August 19, 2013. But the definition of the popular term can be a bit confusing.

According to Rosen, bro-country is,

Music by and of the tatted, gym-toned, party-hearty young American white dude.

One short year later, the definition of bro-country continues to change and adapt. The staff at Taste of Country defines the term as,

Songs that include trucks, some small amount of objectification of women, a clearing at the end of the road where physical affection will take place and some amount of strong alcohol (that one is crucial).

Bro-country  is the classic post 2001 male artist country song that includes some, if not all of the following: Friday night, a girl in tight jeans, ice cold beer, a pick-up truck, a sunny day followed by some moonlight, a watering hole, fishing, 4-wheelin', dirt roads, ball cap, working all week and possibly church.

It bothers me because I don’t feel like it’s a compliment. To me, it’s sort of a backhanded thing that comes from a very narrow-minded listener and I don’t know who came up with that ridiculous term.

If you would take a minute and look at my catalog of songs over the years, there are songs that, I guess, fit whatever the hell that description of 'bro country' is, but at the same time we’ve got songs like ‘Fly over States’ and ‘The Truth’ and ‘Amarillo Sky.’ We’ve got songs that definitely have some meat on them and tell a great story. It’s not all about trucks and girls and beer and whatever else they think it is.